I think this is akin to the unintuitive finding that if you randomly chose someone from your friendlist, there is good chance that this person is more popular than almost everyone else. Just being in the friendlist is a positive factor to the capability of making friends.
The vast majority of day traders is not honing their skills and information sharing inside a dedicated Discord group. Especially in crypto, these groups, and not the big Wallstreet hedge funds, are the most sophisticated and skilled at profiting from smaller markets.
> If the smartest institutional traders with the best tools can't figure out the direction of SPY in the short run with any kind of certainty
This is misunderstanding trading. It is all about uncertainty and willing to take risks if EV+ situations arises. Extremely few are figuring out the short run with any kind of certainty, and these few risk being fined or charged with market manipulation. The average person can find profitable coin flips (56% accuracy), which, while far from certain, can be flipped many times. Sometimes such flips are not possible for the bigger smarter institutional traders, because their plays use way more money, and they focus on what they learned over 30 years. Anyone starting in 2010 is able to be more knowledable about crypto trading, than someone with a 50-year trading career (who pays someone a little-less-knowledgable than you, not in-the-know of Discord or Telegram, to write an analysis).
If you’re playing with thousands, you’re playing a completely different game than someone playing with billions. You don’t have to strategize about how to exit. You just exit.
Many hedge funds outsource the execution of their trades to HFT, which scales in and out over days.
Google Archegos if you want to see what happens when you liquidate billion dollar positions in a hurry.
If you’re playing with thousands, you’re playing a completely different game than someone playing with billions. You don’t have to strategize about how to exit. You just exit.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make money - I just doubt you can intuitively get a sense for the "feel" of the market for something as largely traded as SPY. SPY traded 61 million shares yesterday (at $400 per). If the smartest institutional traders with the best tools can't figure out the direction of SPY in the short run with any kind of certainty, I don't see how an "average" person can. There is enough volume in the markets for institutions to turn around a pretty big freighter.